Tuesday, January 18, 2011

S is for Spiders

This week we've been studying spiders! Arin has learned that spiders are not insects, but they are arachnids. She has learned that some of the differences between spiders and insects are that spiders have two body parts instead of three, they have eight legs instead of six, and as babies they look like the adult, rather than insects which go through many different stages which make them look different than the adults. She learned that spider webs come in many shapes and sizes and that not all spiders spin webs. She found out that spiders kill their prey with their fangs and their main food is insects.

We read the following spider themed books:Do All Spiders Spin Webs? by Melvin and Gilda BergerThe Spider and the Fly by Tony DiTerlizziSpectacular Spiders by Linder GlaserSpiders Close Up by Katie FranksLittle Miss Spider by David KirkThe Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

We found a life cycle of a spider worksheet which I cut apart and used as sequencing cards for Arin.

We also found this worksheet, which we used to learn the names of a spider's body parts.

Arin played a math game which we printed from here. First, she lined the spider webs up in number order. Then, she solved the math equations.

Arin did her first crossword puzzle this week. She loved this activity and I loved that it was both writing practice and copywork practice. There was a word list box which Arin used to learn the spellings of the different words.

To practice word families, we used a game, which I found I here. The body of the spider has the word family. I think they are all word families with the short o sound on the download, but I changed them to -ag, -ig, -og, and -ug. Then, I wrote eight words from each word family on clothes pins. Ella had fun handing the clothes pin legs to her sister and Arin matched the word to the correct word family body. Once she had the clothes pins in their correct spots, she read the words to me.

To practice lacing, we used these cards. Instead of going around the circle, like we would on normal lacing cards, I had the girls make a web out of the card and thread.

I printed out bingo marker worksheets. I printed this with Ella in mind, but Arin enjoyed it as much as she did.

I wrote the poem The Itsy, Bitsy Spider on a piece of paper. Then, I asked Arin to find and circle all of the letter Ss. This was her first experience with this type of activity. She circled many of the s's then handed it back to me, sure that she had gotten them all. She was so surprised to hear that she missed six letter s's. She went back and found them. She did enjoy this activity and we will be doing it again in the future.

I printed spider webs from here. Then, Arin painted a spider stamp (I wish I would have bought a stamp pad) and stamped as many spiders as she wanted on the web. She repeated the process with a second color of spider. Once that was done, she wrote a number sentence and solved it. This was the first time that she has written her own number sentences.

Arin practiced sewing by making a spider web.

I read Miss Spider's ABC by David Kirk to Ella. Then I made an alphabet matching game for her. I drew spider webs, which I put an alphabet sticker in the middle of each. Then, I made spiders and put an alphabet letter on the back of each. Ella was to match the correct spider with its web. She worked in small batches of five webs/spiders. She loved this and kept asking for "more, more!"

I had planned to buy silly string and let them pretend to be spiders with silk thread, but we ran out of time.

To end the study, I made spider snacks. These are banana slices with 8 pretzel sticks (4 broken in half) stuck in them. Then I placed mini chocolate chips on the banana for eyes. The girls were thrilled with this treat.